eggcorn?

[Arnold Zwicky]

more from the past:

On Mar 13, 2009, at 6:08 PM, Paul wrote:

> Poster:       Paul <paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM>
> Subject:      eggcorn?
>
> Watching a mixed martial arts bout from Korea, commentator was talking
> about one fighter being a very cerebral fighter, "He's a Rhode Island
> Scholar of K-1", speaker had a possible Aussie accent.

assuming that the speaker didn't have local knowledge of Rhode Island
(where there is a Rhode Island Scholar recognition program for high
school seniors, and also the Rhode Island Scholar-Athlete Games), this
would probably be one type of "demi-eggcorn": an expression is
reshaped so as to have a part X that is familiar to the speaker
("Rhode Island" instead of "Rhodes", in this case), but X still
doesn't contribute meaning to the whole; the result is an idiom.

discussion at:
  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005026.html

sometimes people who use demi-eggcorns will tell you that X must have
something to do with the meaning of the whole expression, but they
just don't know what.  (occasionally, of course, they'll be tempted to
devise a story that makes sense of X within the expression).

arnold

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